cranberry pumpkin croissant bread pudding

November 21, 2012

Look at this. Thanksgiving hasn’t even happened yet and I’ve already got leftovers on the brain.

Here’s the thing — the holiday is tomorrow. You’ve already got everything planned and ready to roll (and if not, this should help you out). You’re already dreaming of turkey and mashed potatoes in your sleep. You don’t need any more ideas of what else to stuff inside a turkey or stir into a sweet potato casserole or spoon on top of pie.

No. What you need is breakfast.

The idea for bread pudding made with croissants came to me in a moment of mild panic — we were packing up/playing a game of Tetris with our cooler (I had a lot of food I wanted to bring for our move, OK?) and I came across a bag of leftover homemade croissants, leftover frozen pumpkin puree and leftover frozen cranberries. Being that one of my biggest fears in life (besides spiders and clowns and the thought of face-planting on a treadmill) is wasting food and our industrial-size cooler was already busting at the seams, I knew something had to be done. Enter this bread pudding.

Allow me to elaborate on the magic that is this delicious breakfast: It’s made with torn buttery croissants that are then doused in a sweet pumpkin sauce and sprinkled with fresh, tart cranberries and baked up into soft, gooey perfection. It tastes like the holidays in breakfast form. Oh, it’s also ridiculously easy to make. And I’m guessing you’ll have some form of all of the above ingredients leftover from tomorrow’s meal and a gathering of hungry guests the following morning, so… problem solved. You can save the extra turkey and stuffing now for lunch.

Oh, and have a very happy Thanksgiving, ya’ll. I’ll see you at breakfast.